RL: Accrington 20 Rylands 10

ACCRINGTON'S first home game for over a month saw the team return to winning ways.

In a hard fought win against the division's bottom team, they improved on the previous week's performance and showed grit and determination in difficult and very wet conditions only declared fit at the last minute.

Accrington toiled through the first half but controlled most of the period.

Rylands opened up the scoring early on with a converted try but Accrington replied quickly with individual tries from Nick Cook and Ian Coates and a conversion from Steve Ellis.

Rylands again fought back with a try from an Accrington mistake to draw level at 10-10 by half time.

Rylands' attitude and commitment in the first half belied their current league position but it was the long awaited returning partnership of Paul Kinaston and Paul Scanlon that eventually broke the visitors' will.

The two front row forwards, now attacking the drier half of the pitch, began to punch holes in the opposition's defence, drawing in numerous defenders to bring them down.

This allowed the ball playing backs of Ellis, Cook and Paul Wilcock to throw the ball around and bring players onto the ball through the gaping holes in the Ryland defence.

Accrington's first try in the second half came from such a play with Kinaston's marauding run allowing Coates to run from dummy half for 40 metres before offloading to Martin Taylor to score under the posts, Ellis again converting.

The try that sealed the game came after numerous sets of six on the Rylands try line and a well worked move again involving Cook allowed Mark Brindle to cross the line for a well deserved try.

The hard running Kinaston picked up the man of the match award but a great team performance gained the vital two points.

Accrington now have a week off before travelling to Cadishead Rhinos who sit at the top of the league.

Anyone interesting in playing for or becoming involved in the club can contact Tony Hindle on 0797 4380347.